Millions spent on hotels for homeless by council
A single hotel has been paid more than £1m in each of the last two years by a local authority to house homeless people, new figures show.
Data shows Wakefield Council's overall annual hotel bill for providing residents with temporary accommodation has topped £2m in each of the past three financial years.
The amount spent on short-term hotel stays has increased more than tenfold in nine years, the statistics showed.
The council said there was “no quick fix” to the problem due to an increase in the number of people needing help.
Councils have a legal duty to provide accommodation for anyone who becomes homeless.
During the last financial year, the council paid a total of £2,034,019 for residents to stay at nine hotels across the district, the figures from a Freedom of Information request showed.
One hotel, which the council refused to identify, was paid more than £1m in each of the past two years, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
It is more than double the amount paid by the hotel which received the second highest amount of £458,930.
The overall amount spent on hotels during 2022/23 was £2,347,000, with £2,081,776 being spent during 2021/22.
In contrast, the annual cost to the taxpayer in 2015/16 was much lower, at £190,859.
'Social causes'
Pam Taylor, Wakefield Council’s interim service director for communities, said more and more people needed help, and it was not unique to Wakefield.
“People become homeless for lots of different reasons. Social causes like poverty, unemployment and life events.
“And increasingly, because of the rising cost of living, many people become homeless because they can no longer afford to rent.
Ms Taylor said the council was trying to work with partner organisations to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
In January last year, a scrutiny committee meeting was told the council was spending £75 a night for each person housed in hotel accommodation.
Council chiefs said the authority was becoming increasingly reliant on hotels to house some of its most vulnerable residents.
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